North London's Best Unsung Museums

Venture beyond the Wellcome Collection and the Jewish Museum in north London and you’ll find a number of great museums — most of them in storied locations — celebrating the cultures that grew out of industry on London’s waterways, the city’s Jewish heritage and the WW2 secrets you won’t find in bunkers of Westminster.

Markfield Beam Engine and Museum

The gorgeous steam engine at the Markfield Museum is decorated with Doric columns and acanthus leaves with flywheels 27 feet tall — its majesty belying the fact it used to pump sewage around town.

Now defunct, the engine still stands in its engine house in a quiet park just off the A10.

Markfield Beam Engine and Museum.

It’s open on the second Sunday of the month (plus the fourth Sundays in the summer) and sometimes they even turn on the steam so you can see it work. If you’re interested in Victoriana, it’s a bit of a hidden treasure.

Reviewed by this very website, we noted the volume of acquisitions, including vintage motorbikes, buses and a train carriage (as well as a lovely caff and wishing well). Check out our review for loads more photos.

2 Willow Road

This Hampstead property is often overlooked for the impressive Fenton House and Hampstead pergolas nearby.

But anyone with an interest in 20th-century art and architecture should indulge their nosy side by wandering around Trellick Tower architect's Erno Goldfinger's former home, and the only modernist house in London that's open to the public.

Keats House

Literary London is so often thought of as Dickens’s dank, dark city of inequality and hardship.

But what about the London of a medical student-turned-poet? See the engagement ring and love letters Keats gave to his fiancée and his death mask, as well as manuscripts of his work and books from his library.

Bruce Castle

From the civilian internees at Alexandra Palace to Tottenham's Speedway engine factory to its Roman settlement, there’s more at Bruce Castle Museum than you’d expect.

The building itself (along with its lovely grounds) has its own strange story: it was a private home from the 16th century, then a school and a doctor’s surgery. Perhaps a bit niche for many Londoners, but there are plenty of good resources here for anyone with an interest in local history.

Canal Museum

If you’ve ever enjoyed a walk or bike ride along one of the city's waterways, this place explains why they’ve got such a pride of place in contemporary London.

The Canal Museum.

It's also, surprisingly, a great place for anyone who has a passion for ice cream: the museum sits in the warehouse of a late 19th-century ice cream baron called Carlo Gatti who imported Norwegian ice for his food business, and still has an ice well in the basement that particle physicists use for experiments.

If you can, plan your visit to coincide with one of the museum’s boat tours in the Islington Tunnel — they cost £8.40 and tickets include the price of entrance to the museum.

Freud Museum

For anyone who’s ever wondered whether a cigar is just a cigar... The Freud Museum has recreated the therapist’s office, including the couch and Freud’s collected figurines of characters from myths and classical religion.